It may sound like an odd choice, but Google said the research could help work out "continuous control problems such as robotic manipulation and locomotion."

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The virtual ant can move around its surroundings, kick a ball and is able to successfully aim it towards a 'goal'. The experiment is part of a wider project from DeepMind of "deep learning of neural networks".

"At DeepMind we have pioneered a combination of approaches to create the first artificial agents to achieve human-level performance across many challenging domains," the firm wrote in a blog post.

"From Atari to Labyrinth, from locomotion through manipulation, to poker and even the game of Go, our deep reinforcement learning agents have demonstrated remarkable progress on a wide variety of challenging tasks."

"Our goal is to continue to improve the capabilities of our agents, and to use them to make a positive impact on society, in important applications such as healthcare."